Is Taoism Left Hand Path or Right Hand Path?
>>43068125Under heaven thunder rolls:All things attain the natural state of innocence.Thus the kings of old,Rich in virtue, and in harmony with the time,Fostered and nourished all beings.
>>43068125I don't think it ever says anything about burning babies. so its not left hand path.then again, the Tao doesn't take sides so it can't be right hand path either.
It's a catch all term for a whole ecosystem of religion and philosophy. Hererodox/orthodox, left hand/right hand schools/sects all exist
>>43068125Tao is the nameless path.
>>43068125It's having both hands then choosing to use neither of them.
>>43068125Some are highly ritualized and clean. Others are basically Chinese satanic sacrifice types. Taoism is an adult religion. It’s the only one besides gay Hindu shit that admits that the source created evil. Some people who seek to know the dao fall into more banal and base acts of cruelty. Some simply stray away from the path for they lost patience and wanted more noise to keep them entertained. Those who are clean, follow ritual, and observe predicate and hierarchy can also be as deluded. The dao is dao. Noise is just noise. There is no right hand and left hand path unless you make it so. It’s all up to you.
>>43068839>the source created evilthat's not true, and that's not taoism, either: you're trying to make everything fit into the worldview of a jewish satanist
the potential for evil is not "creating evil"; taoism has no theodicy
>>43068125Taoism is ancient anon culture! Taoist works are a dialogue between the exachad anon Laozi, and the redditor Confucius.Zhuangzi has all the answers and you should read his works, they're very fun and not as dry as you expect, but I'll distill them for you.Don't try to act consistent, it'll lead to your ruin. For any rule for living you can think of, someone can construct a situation where you would die an absurdly stupid death following that rule. This includes most of the rules I write down here, paradoxically. Use your head!Don't blindly align with the good, or you will quickly serve tyrants who wear the brand name of Good(tm). Toxic positivity exists. People with a reddit brained idea of good exist. Righteousness is when you oppress people with kind words and then call them evil for having a frown on their face. There is no "good faction", all factions are evil for they want to control people. Taoism is anarchist to the bone.Don't be benevolent with handouts like a communist. You will create envy and dependence.Don't do things you aren't good at, do things you are good at. Skill is pretend, only talent exists.Don't try to become famous, fame is nothing but trouble. Adopt a tripcode, gain parasocial stalkers.Don't try to be liked, be truthful instead.Don't accept gifts that would make you dependent, or power that would ruin your health with worry. Zhuangzi often tells the parable akin to one where the taoist offered a janitor or mod position, or even 4chan itself would feel insulted and throw himself off a cliff in disgust.At the sign of trouble, withdraw. When attacked, disperse. Give the enemy no target. Sounds familiar? Literally ALL of the wisdom you've learned on this site has been written down by the Taoists 2500 years ago, word for word. You are posting on the digital Wudang, descended directly in line via futaba's design being clearly an expression of zen, itself being mostly taoism with a buddhist coat of paint.
>>43068313>I don't think it ever says anything about burning babies. so its not left hand path.You just proven you have no clue regarding distinction between LHP and RHP beside popculture tourist's belief.>>43068125Taoism in general doesn't subscribe to the same cosmology that lef to this distinction, but if one would be hard-pressed to categorize it, it's largely, albeit not fully, right-hand. Ultimately, you realize yourself as part and expression of greater Tao.
>>43069043Is this AI post? OP asked a clear question, you brought a list of behavior recommendations that are poor distillation of the point of taoism while not answering OP's question at all.
>>43068125Wouldn't it be both?Literally just... look at your image lmao
>>43069283NTAYin and yang represent different concepts than LHP and RHP do, coming from different cosmology.>>43068313>I don't think it ever says anything about burning babies. so its not left hand path.Burning babies can be as right as left-hand path, depending on rationale.I will come as toxic and impassioned, but holy fuck are anons ITT... dumb, to put it mildly.
>>43069276Can you fucking read? OP asked about Taoism and I summarized it in retard language in hopes even a 76 IQ subsaharan like you could understand it, but as the taoist works tell us, you cannot make a retard understand anything more than a sparrow could understand a 747.
>>43069303No, you fucking retard. OP didn't ask about taoism, what it is etc. OP asked whether it'd be categorized, by western standards as Right-hand or Left-hand path.There's no single question about definition or principles of taoism. There's no single question about what it represents. There's no single question about what some Chinese guy wrote about it. There's only one question: is it right or left-hand path. You didn't answer that, yet alone why it'd be this or that. You completely ignored the question to throw a take on what behaviors it supposedly recommends.Perhaps you should ensure you don't struggle with questions a "76 IQ subsaharan" easily recognizes before shitting yourself in indignation.
>>43069329>>43069043>inb4 but those behaviors hint at which it is!No they fucking don't. Not if you actually understand distinction and goals of either path and how behaviors along the way, including adherence to good or evil isn't in fact, defining characteristics of either.
>>43068125Taoism is that guy who tries to explain to midwits that not everything in life fits their neat made-up categories. People aren't interested in studying reality, they want to be fed morally satisfying narratives.
>>43069417Taoism itself at the same time divides reality into fundamental blocks of existence into groups and categories far more than majority of occult traditions, ironically enough. I assume it's some sort of archetypical tendency of Chinese to codify everything that led to such behavior. Anyway, the fact that categories are a crutch created by people to easily order and comprehend various elements of some tradition doesn't change the fact that those elements fit this or that category.Though coming from a different cosmology, every religion can be categorized as leaning RHP or LHP. The fact that for some the distinction may be meaningless, doesn't change that there's fundamental, objective reasons for why it could be one or the other.
>>43069298no, I'm rightit really is simple asyou're just bored and overthinking it
>>43069531You declaring yourself right won't make you right.If you don't understand the concepts you discuss and just treat them as analogous because "oh look, both are dualities!" then you are and will remain wrong, I'm afraid.It's like that with completely different cosmologies - elements of one represent different concepts than similar elements of the other.
>>43069581Nah, it's a simple as I said.
>>43069505The distinction between left hand and right hand is honestly not that useful when you see religions.
>>43068125Daoism can include both. It's an umbrella term for chinese sciences and arts that are connected by the idea that stuying or practicing any of those you are interacting and trying to master energies of the dao in the universe. There are shit ton of sects and folk magic traditions and Internal alchemy lineages. Some of those you can categorize as left hand path and black magic. But that is daoism as much as satanic ceremonies are part of christianity. They operate under a cultural context of the religion but in essence it's an inverion and a deviaton.
>>43068887>the potential for evil is not "creating evil"It absolutely is.
100% right hand path
>>43068125In ancient China, Taoism was instrumentalized by a political movement known as Legalism (whose foremost figure was Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor).Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his Legalist ministers realized that if the population practiced total detachment and Taoist quietism on a mass, literal scale, adopting the mindset that "nothing matters in the grand cosmic order", they would cease to protest against taxes, forced labor, and the lack of freedoms.The State instrumentalized a spiritual truth (inner peace) to turn it into a geopolitical advantage: a docile population. They transformed the Middle Way into a mechanism for social anesthesia.The emperor took order, hierarchy, and obedience (the Right Hand) and fused them with an adulterated version of Taoist quietism (a manipulated Middle Way).• He redefined "balance" and "harmony" as total submission to the law of the Empire.• If you protested, you were not merely a criminal; you were disrupting the "natural order" and the peace of the collective. The State became the sole arbiter of balance.To Legalism, the "Left Hand" did not consist of dark sorcerers; it comprised intellectuals, philosophers, freethinkers, and rebels. Anyone who championed individual sovereignty, critical thinking, or local traditions that rivaled the State was viewed as a virus within the system.This led to one of the most brutal acts of censorship and persecution in human history in 213 BCE:• The emperor ordered the destruction of all texts on philosophy, history, and literature that lacked practical utility (such as agriculture, medicine, or divination). He sought to erase the past and any alternative conception of "Truth."• The following year, he had over 460 scholars and thinkers—many of them Confucians and independent philosophers—executed by burying them alive while standing upright. Their crime? Harboring their own ideas, criticizing the emperor's laws, and acting as sovereign individuals.
>>43070254"The Middle Way" is simply for the peasants. These peasants simply engage with the cyclical nature of samsara and remain NPCs throughout their entire lives, then repeat. Left Hand Path is living through Yin - sensuality, consuming, taking what you want whenever you want. Yang is about submitting the individual ego and connecting with the will of God consciousness
>>43068313The Tao is just the Holy Spirit. Anything adjunct to that is a misunderstanding or human application.
>>43070259You don't understand what the narrow gate actually is.
>>43070254You are surely based, lotus nigga.
>>43068125Following an established path - like Taoism or any other - is RHP.Forging your own path is LHP.Even if you follow something like LaVey, that is RHP, although LaVey himself was LHP by forging his own way.
>>43070259>Yin - sensuality, consuming, taking what you want whenever you want. Yang is about submitting the individual ego and connecting with the will of God consciousnessThis is your average christian understanding of eastern systems.>>43070279>The Tao is just the Holy Spirit. Anything adjunct to that is a misunderstanding or human application.That's it. Christians should be legally barred from even speaking about China. They're not ready to have a rational conversation about it.
>>43070291K bud>>43070334>This is your average christian understanding of eastern systems.They tie in very closely together. It's very interesting once you make the connections. Yin is the consuming component the Taijitu. Yang is infinite possibility. Together they collapse into the finite
>>43070279Not at all. The concepts even in theory are so different and meant to represent such a different things that you either commit heresy from the standpoint of christianity or admit blatant, fundamental ignorance from the standpoint of taoism.I know people like to make hot takes by seeking analogy of one concept in one religion to that of another. It makes them feel smart that they found some simple, shared links. They often have to butcher or simplify to the point of meaning something else the elements they compare though, like how it is right now with you.
*kowtows*Greetings, fellow Daoists.
>>43070616Brother, everything is connected. The more you get into it, the more you'll see it. The goal of Taoism is the same as Christianity. Christianity goes about it a different way - "Don't do this. Don't do that. Because God said so." Whereas Taoism goes about it through internal alchemical processes so you'll know exactly WHY God says: "Don't do this. Don't do that. That is evil."
>>43068853Kek. So do you even know about Taoism? Then again talking to a tripfag on 4chan makes me think probably not.
Here is one way to think about it:If your primary concern is that you are always doing the "right" thing, then you are following the RHP regardless of whatever you think "RHP" even means.If your primary attitude is that everything you do is "left" there, as in, you just abandon your own ideas, your own opinions, your own actions, the moment you complete them, and you leave others to decide what they are going to do as a reaction to what you have already taken the initiative to do on your own - that is the essence of LHP.Instead of priming yourself to be "right", frame everything you do as just "left" out. You point at the things other "leave out", they "left out" something because they refuse to acknowledge it or dont know about it or whatever. That is the way of the LHP. Bring people into contact with the unknown, seek it out for yourself, and become a stranger to your own opinions once you have given them. Let the chips fall as they may after that.
